Search Results
Journal Article
Interview: Raghuram Rajan
In August 2005, at the annual conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Raghuram Rajan created a stir. Rajan, then chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, argued in a presentation that a hidden danger of massive failures was lurking in the global financial system. Risks had been building up, he said, a result of the incentives facing private institutions in the environment of that era.
Conference Paper
Strategies for growth : general discussion
Working Paper
The IT Boom and Other Unintended Consequences of Chasing the American Dream
We study how US immigration policy and the Internet boom affected not just the US, but also led to a tech boom in India. Students and workers in India acquired computer science skills to join the rapidly growing US IT industry. As the number of US visas was capped, many remained in India, enabling the growth of an Indian IT sector that eventually surpassed the US in IT exports. We leverage variation in immigration quotas and US demand for migrants to show that India experienced a 'brain gain' when the probability of migrating to the US was higher. Using detailed data on higher education, ...
Briefing
The Role of Nonbanks and Fintechs in Boosting India’s UPI Person-to-Merchant Transactions
Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a mobile-based instant payment system in India, has grown substantially in the last few years. Indians initially used UPI for person-to-person (P2P) payments, but today use UPI more for person-to-merchant (P2M) payments. Nonbanks and fintechs have contributed to the rapid growth of UPI P2M payments by providing third-party apps, merchant services, and consumer credit, as well as enabling UPI P2M payments to expand beyond India’s borders.
Report
A tale of two giants: comparing China and India
Accounting for 40 percent of the world?s population and almost 20 percent of the world?s output, China and India are two of Asia?s?indeed, the world?s?economic giants. In addition to their size, these countries have other traits in common. Both are among the fastest-growing economies in the world, and both are transitioning from heavily state-controlled and regulated economies to more market-based economic systems.
Working Paper
A tale of two states: Maharashtra and West Bengal
In this paper the authors study the economic evolution between 1960 and 1995 of two states in India ? Maharashtra and West Bengal. In 1960, West Bengal?s per capita income exceeded that of Maharashtra. By 1995, it had fallen to just 69 percent of Maharashtra?s per capita income. The authors employ a "wedge" methodology based on the first order conditions of a multi-sector neoclassical growth model to ascertain the sources of the divergent economic performances. Their diagnostic analysis reveals that a large part of West Bengal?s development woes can be attributed to: (a) low sectoral ...
Report
Trading activity in the Indian government bond market
We study how the Indian government bond market functions, how it has changed over time, and what factors help explain some of its features. Looking at the primary market, we describe how underwriting obligations are allocated to primary dealers via auction and identify several significant determinants of the underwriting commission cutoff rate, including the launch of the Negotiated Dealing System-Order Matching System (NDS-OM) electronic trading platform. Turning to the secondary market, we explore the importance of benchmark bonds, the launch of NDS-OM, the growth in trading activity, and ...
Journal Article
World Population: What Helps Explain the Explosion?
A steep decline in India’s death rate from 1950 to 2019 substantially affected the size of the global population and reduced that nation’s median age relative to the U.S.
Report
Patterns of rainfall insurance participation in rural India
This paper describes the contract design and institutional features of an innovative rainfall insurance policy offered to smallholder farmers in rural India and presents preliminary evidence on the determinants of insurance participation. Insurance take-up is found to be decreasing in basis risk between insurance payouts and income fluctuations, higher among wealthy households, and lower among households that are credit constrained. These results match predictions of a simple neoclassical model appended with borrowing constraints. Other patterns are less consistent with the benchmark model. ...
Working Paper
A Passage to India : Quantifying Internal and External Barriers to Trade
This paper quantifies the size of internal versus external trade barriers and assesses the impact on trade and welfare. I develop a quantitative multi-sector international trade model featuring nonhomothetic preferences in which states trade both domestically and internationally. I discipline the model using rich micro data on price dispersion as well as foreign and domestic trade flows at the Indian state level. I find that (1) state-based price data predict internal trade flows well; (2) internal trade barriers make up 40% of the total trade cost on average, but vary substantially by state ...